The place is a great spot for shutterbugs. It's well lit, so you
don't have trouble finding a spot for your #ootd shots. The furniture's
and wall colours are also good, since it blends naturally with skintones, no
need to do plenty of editing when taking shots here.

This restaurant whilst being new, is supported by a well known
steak-house in Surabaya, which makes the dish rather interesting.

The problem is with the kind of dish they're serving, which is
Fusion, Upscale Indonesian food. Both usually not Surabaya's favorite. So this
place really have got the guts to try this particularly arduous combination.

Taste-wise I'm not a fan of any fusion cuisine, be it Japanese,
Indian, nor Indonesian. From my personal observation, the fusion dishes that's
being welcomed by Surabaya people is the Japanese fusion, but that's not
because they like the taste better, rather it's a cheaper alternative for the
real thing.

Usually that's the norm with fusion dish in this city, but there
are exceptions to it.

Citrus lee is an example, a fine dining restaurant that's one of
the costliest albeit being popular dining destination, serving fusion dishes of
French and Chinese influence.

Some place which sells Indonesian food, often time have to make a
hard decision between going for the traditional bold tasting dishes, with a
messy kind of appearance that's really not camera friendly, which is what you
usually gets in traditional Indonesian restaurant, or you go the other route of
cafe - fusion techniques, which usually put emphasize on good plating rather
than those bold authentic tastes.

This Glutinous Rice with rendang is quite a unique appetizer, I
liked the combination of tastes here. Though being billed as appetizer, this
one could pass as main course alternative, since it's very filling

Usually, when ordering a Oxtail Soup (Sop Buntut) what comes in
mind is a savory, rich broth which is just nice, could pass for a sick days
dish, where you need something extra mild for the tummy. This one though, is a
stark difference from the classic dish.

It's bright and tangy, since it uses Blimbing Wuluh, which is a
super sour fruit. Weather you'd like it or not, would depends on your personal
taste.

Since this soup as is were pretty tangy and sour, I wont recommend you using the lime like the above picture. We were on autopilot photo taking mode yesterday, and ended up with a soup to sour, even for me who really enjoy sour tasting food :D

This Fried Rice above use Mengkudu (Noni fruit) leaf, which is
supposedly one of their signature dish. We kinda like the second Fried Rice
though, which was made with dragon fruit.
Don't be deterred by their use of dragon fruit though, since taste-wise it
isn't out of the ordinary. It's almost the same with your regular fried rice,
which is nice.

There's this Gula Asam (java
tamarind) drink along with Kunir Asam (tumeric) which was served during this
lunch. I like the tamarind one better since it's stronger tasting, whilst the
tumeric was just a tad too light.

This mini jug doubles as a
glass for the drink, which might seem tedious to drink from. You'll just need
to use straw instead of sipping directly on the jug.

The favorit dessert were the Poffertjes, which weren't special in
any way, but up to the standard. The dessert soup of kolak pisang was decent.
What didn't suit our tastebud were the Muso Jambi, which weren't that great
combined. Especially the chocolate cup, which were bitter and strange.

Weather you'd like the food here or not is a personal matter. I myself found the food decent, though nothing that really makes me eager to comeback here and have a taste.

Taking Indonesian food and making it a fusion dish, or modern take on it, if this doesn't really classify as fusion, would take a hell of an effort.Even celebrity chef like Alvin Leung struggled with that task.As you can see the snippets here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpeChyWxXZI

That being said, the place is what really would make this place popular. It's breezy, comfy and vast, the kind of place you want to lounge and have a long nice conversation with friends.

For closing, I'd like to add another great point of this
restaurant. Apart from the gutso to bring something new whilst risky to the
Surabaya dining scene, they also have a unique way of doing their soft opening
period. Usually in Surabaya, whatever restaurant you open, would be stormed by
curious diner. This time around, they take a different route for this restaurant.
Botanika is open for public, but only through reservation, that way, it
wouldn't be overwhelmed by the overflow of visitor, and service would be kept
at civil condition. Great move on Botanika, hopefully other restaurant will
follow suit